TEDx guests share great ideas

Nobel Prize-winning chemist Kary Mullis had the audience laughing and applauding his story about sending frogs into space with rockets he built as a kid in South Carolina.

Internationally known architect Gesine Thomson spoke about how motherhood has influenced her work.

Eyal and Leya Aronoff, father and daughter, revealed the strain of living with autism.

They were among the more than 30 speakers and performers at the third annual TEDxOrangeCoast event held Friday and Saturday in Costa Mesa. Talks on brain-imaging science, architecture, living with a terminal illness, memory, skateboarding and overcoming fear were interspersed with music and dance.

TEDx events are locally organized offshoots of the iconic TED Talks that feature short, inspirational talks done in 18 minutes or less. The variety of speakers – both world-famous and local Orange County residents – means that the event spans more than the technology, entertainment and design indicated in the acronym TED, said executive producer Mojdeh Eskandari. She organizes the nonprofit event with her husband and the event's curator, Amir Banifatemi.

“It's about everything, every aspect of life that matters, every idea worth sharing that you have in any field,” she said. “When you put that together … you have the audience enjoying every single one of them.”

This is the third year for TEDxOrangeCoast, but the first year that it's been a two-day event, she said. That has helped it become more interactive than in past years, she said.

To increase the ability of the audience to talk with speakers and share ideas, this year's event had long midsession breaks and plenty of ways for people to interact in the Segerstrom Center for the Arts lobby. In the early afternoon Saturday, attendees mingled with speakers and stopped at a booth to try Google Glass. On the second floor, on three large poster boards, attendees were asked to place stickers on a world map to mark their birthplace or “home” – some were as far-flung as Japan, Afghanistan, South Korea and South Africa. Another asked them where they believe creativity springs from – is it innate or taught? Spontaneous or deliberate?

Interaction “makes the event richer than just sitting there and listening,” Eskandari said. “You talk to the speakers, you meet the audience. And everyone is getting mixed up. I think that's the beauty of it.”

Here are a few of the speakers from the event:

THE 15-YEAR-OLD CHILD PRODIGY

Speaking with a wisdom and maturity that belied her age, 15-year-old Adora Svitak discussed her belief that conversations are the fuel of human interaction.

“Some people call it ‘idea sex',” Svitak told the crowd. “It's not just where beautiful minds meet, but where they are born.”

Svitak is an author and veteran TED speaker. She published her first book, “Flying Fingers,” at the age 8. Her TED speech at age 13, “What adults can learn from kids,” has racked up more than 2.6 million views on YouTube.

On Friday, the high school senior from Redmond, Wash., told the more than 1,500 people in attendance that life's greatest values come from the “snippets of life,” or the “small realizations” that spark from conversations.

She said people have a misconception that an idea is worthless if no action materializes from it.

She believes that approaching a person, talking and creating that human interaction is far more important than any kind of action that may come from that conversation.

“Life is more than just about getting things done,” she said.

THE FATHER AND AUTISTIC DAUGHTER

Only five foods were once acceptable to Leya Aronoff, and they were all white. When other kids played and laughed together at birthday parties, she ran along with them, but didn't understand what was happening.

Leya and her father, Eyal Aronoff, gave a moving talk about the difficulties of living with autism and with an autistic child. Eyal is a co-founder of Fuel Freedom Foundation, aimed at opening fuel markets to cheaper and cleaner fuels such as ethanol.

“It takes time for the words to get to my ears, to run through my brain and to process their meaning,” Leya said, describing the whirlwind in her mind when things are moving too fast.

“She had beautiful green eyes and an incredible smile,” Eyal Aronoff said of his daughter at birth. “Yet, she was disconnected from the world. She didn't speak, she did not complain. So although she was the best baby ever, she was autistic.”

Autism is on the rise, the two told TEDx attendees, but there is hope, Eyal said after their speech. “Parents with an autistic child are not given any hope,” Eyal said. “But what we have proved with Leya and other kids is they have a very bright future, but you need to activate their minds.”

THE PHOTOGRAPHER FIGHTING SLAVERY

Lisa Kristine has photographed cultures in more than 100 countries for years, but it wasn't until four years ago, during an exhibition of her work at the 2009 Vancouver Peace Summit, that she met a supporter of the organization Free the Slaves and became aware of human slavery, which is now the focus of her work.

Kristine spoke in front of giant projections of her photos – brick-makers in India and Nepal forced to carry up to 18 4-pound bricks on their heads in 130-degree heat, kids forced to haul heavy fishing nets in Lake Volta in Ghana.

“There are more than 30 million enslaved in the world today,” Kristine said. “I thought, ‘How could this be? Wasn't this already taken care of in the 1800s?'”

Kristine said she aims to spread the idea of a common humanity with her photos in order to encourage others to support organizations working to end slavery.

“I knew that if I could make photographs of people with their dignity, no matter how dire the situation or environment they were forced to be in, and I could share that work with views, that the likelihood of them being compelled to do something would happen,” Kristine said after her speech. “If we can see one another as a fellow human being, than you can't tolerate abuses like slavery.”

THE PROFESSIONAL MOTHER ARCHITECT

Gesine Thomson is a globetrotter.

Every time she hops on a plane and fills out an occupational visa form, she lists her most important job: mother.

An acclaimed architect and international humanitarian, Thomson said the greatest gifts she's ever received are her two children.

At the TEDx event, she told the crowd that when she thinks of the “Beautiful Mind” theme, she is immediately brought back to the times when her children, now adults in their 30s, were toddlers.

“Children's minds are innocent, pure and open,” Thomson said. “They dare to take a leap of faith. They trust. They commit.”

Speaking with a refined eloquence, the elegant Thomson said she became a “social architect” who mothers her projects and became the person she is today because of the lessons she's learned from her children.

“I learned about leadership, diplomacy, common sense, being a mentor, mediator, to listen, patience, and patience and patience,” she said to the crowd's delight. “And breaking rules. Children don't know that rules exist.”

She challenged the audience to step out of their comfort zone and into the minds of children where there are no boundaries.

THE NATIONAL UNIFIER FROM PBS

While on vacation in Sweden, Mel Rogers, president and CEO of PBS SoCal, saw something that surprised him. On the Swedish version of public television was a national singalong program.

The show is called Allsång på Skansen where the audience sings along with popular Swedish songs. The show draws tens of thousands of people as audience members and millions of viewers.

He asked his host how often the show aired. The host replied: “Every month.”

Initially baffled, Rogers quickly came to realize that kind of national unity is missing in the United States.

“We don't have many shared experiences in the media,” Rogers said in his TEDx speech. “We are all doing our own thing with the multiplicity of television channels and the Internet, mobile devices and social media.”

“It's no longer that we do things at the same time on a large scale in America,” Rogers said.

Rogers said he aims to bring that same kind of “national unity” to public television programming.

“We live in a country with such polarization and my view of a beautiful mind in America is one that takes a look at the whole landscape … and finds something that bring us all together,” Rogers said after his speech.

THE DESIGNER OF HAPPY MEMORIES

When Shaheen Sadeghi was 16 years old, his mother took him on a long summer vacation to London. It was 1970 and Sadeghi was more interested in hanging out with his band, his buddies and his girlfriend. But the memories of that trip, and especially the fashion- and music-rich environment where Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix and the Rolling Stones were superstars, enriched his life and steered him to design, he said backstage after his talk.

“I have these very powerful memories of things that I went through that completely changed my life, absolutely,” Sadeghi said. “I think we all do.”

Sadeghi's TEDx talk focused on how happy memories make happy people. It's actually a concept that is linked to his creation of The LAB and The Camp, the two nontraditional, locally focused retail centers in Costa Mesa.

“We are an accumulation of all of these memories that we make on a daily basis,” he said. “The fact is, if you have wonderful memories, chances are you are a very happy person.”

“Everything we do, we want to make memories. That's where this whole memory concept came to work for us as an organization,” he said backstage. It's the reason The Camp and The LAB house one-of-a-kind stores and restaurants. Variety and authenticity are the key.